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Two Guinness World Record holders die, one the oldest person and the other the tallest woman.

News reports from China surfacing today say Yao Defen died in November in her home town in the eastern province of Anjui.

She was the world’s tallest woman measuring 2.33m.

Her height was the result of a tumour and by the age of 13 she was 1.85m tall.

Her family put her in a circus to supplement their meagre income.

OLDEST WOMAN DIES

A 116-year-old woman listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living person anywhere around the globe died on Tuesday in a nursing home in the US state of Georgia, soon after having her hair done.

Besse Cooper died peacefully at the Park Place nursing home in Monroe, Georgia, according to her son Sidney Cooper.

‘‘She looked real good when she passed away,’’ the 77-year-old Cooper said.

‘‘She got up this morning, had a big old breakfast and got her hair fixed.

‘‘It’s just like she got up planning to do it.’’

He said his mother, who was a teacher until her first child was born in 1929, had four children. All of them survived her and are still in good health, he said.

‘‘She lived in three centuries. Not many people do that,’’ said Cooper.

He added that his mother died after a brief bout of breathing trouble that put her back in bed after lunch.

Besse Cooper was first certified as the world’s oldest person by Guinness World Records in January 2011.

The title was stripped from her for a few months when it was discovered that Brazilian-born Maria Gomes Valentim, a fellow super centenarian, was 48 days older.

Guinness gave the title back to Cooper after Gomes Valentim died in June 2011.